Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Best Indie Songs of 2015 - Songs 1-10

As we noted a year ago, the “best of” music lists provide a great vehicle for discovering music that we missed. During the year, the volume of interesting songs is so great that the expression “drinking from the fire hose” is appropriate. We try to read as many December lists possible.

Indie Obsessive uses the same ranking algorithm each year:

It’s an adaption of an arbitrage pricing approach developed in 1973 by Fisher Black and Myron Scholes. The good news is that the complex portion is multiplied “0, so the complex portion is completely irrelevant to the outcome and should be ignored.

Consequently, the ranking of a particular song is based on its value of P, where P is personal “preference.” Pretty simple – if we like a song slightly more than another song, it ranks higher. The flaw in the process is that the P value for a song is dependent upon our mood at the time, so the order of songs is likely to change from one day to the next. But while the order may change, the songs remain on the list, so you probably don’t care. It should be noted that the ranking reflects the blog's focus - Indie artists on the rise. The bias is toward bands that deserve more attention than they are currently receiving.

1. “Communicate” by The Dunwells (This song is slightly time displaced, since it was on a 2014 EP and will be on a 2016 album. But it's our obsession in 2015.)

2. “Mont Blanc” by Quiet Hollers - Lyrically, this is easily our favorite song of 2015.

3. “All Day All Night” by Moon Taxi

4. “Where You Are” by Rezlow

5. “2 Heads” by Coleman Hell (This year, our post of the song received 20,000 hits.)